One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ....... part 159 .... the wireless makes a reappearance

The continuing story   of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

“‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’”**

And that pretty much is what I think when I use the word wireless which has always meant the radio.

My Wikipedia tells me that “wireless is the transfer of information (telecommunication) between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most common wireless technologies use radio waves”.***

But me, Joe and Mary Ann Scott will always associate it with the box in the corner which offered up a window on the world, via the news, music and talking programmes.  

In the first house I can remember in Peckham in the 1950s dad, or someone had installed a system where each of the radios across the place were tuned into the three channels from the Home Service, The Light Programme and the Third Programme.

It's an old memory which has resurfaced with the discovery that you can now recharge your mobile phone using “wireless”, the very same “wireless” that allows us to pick up the internet from any where in the house and send messages, and receive pictures, TV and YouTube from a heap of different devices.

At which point I am beginning to sound like one of those aged relatives from my youth who marvelled at the automatic washing machine, and the presence of a television in the front room.

And I fully accept that my wireless in the corner and the router in the kitchen are essentially just the same thing … things designed to receive “the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer”.

If I stop to think about it, it still strikes me as a bit like magic, but a sort of magic I take for granted along with the telly and the phone.

And this house has over the century, and a bit embraced a lot of that magic.  

Joe chose to light the house with electricity back in 1915 when some homes were still using gas, never installed a range in the kitchen but went for a gas cooker and by the early 1920s had a telephone followed a few decades later by a TV.

So I suppose the reappearance of the word wireless shouldn’t surprise me given that essentially it is really just a “doing” word for something that makes life a little easier and a bit more fun.

The wireless cradle, 2025

To which I can add an Amazon Alexa which was one of our Christmas presents.

It is as everyone knows “a virtual assistant technology marketed by Amazon and implemented in software applications for smart phones, tablets, wireless smart speakers, and other electronic appliances.

Alexa was largely developed from a Polish speech synthesizer named Ivona, acquired by Amazon on January 24, 2013”.****

I will never know what Joe and Mary Ann would have made of Alexa but given their acceptance of new technology I bet they would have had one, leaving me just to ponder on whether it would have been known as Alexa, the wireless or something else

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; advert for radios, 1949, from the collection of Graham Gill, and a wireless cradle, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Story of a House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2025/12/one-hundred-years-of-one-house-in_27.html

**“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

 “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

 “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that's all.” Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking-Glass

***Wireless,  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless

****Amazon Alexa, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Alexa

Cleaning, polishing and answering the door ........... domestic service in Chorlton in 1927

I have long been interested in domestic service, ever since I researched the working conditions in rural Chorlton in the first half of the 19th century.*

By the end of that century even the most humble of families sought the prestige of at least one domestic servant.

And in many households there was just the one, who often went under the title of maid of all work and that was exactly what her job entailed.

So in a large house hold where there might gradations of servants from butlers, and housekeepers to kitchen staff and many more in the more modest homes there was but one and she did it all.

Now I have come across descriptions of the work of such servants from the 19th century but here courtesy of Bob Jones is one from 1927.

In that year his mum came across from Yorkshire and began work in the big house on Alexandra Road.

In the fullness of time I will go looking for that house and the family that lived there but for now I shall just leave you with her job description.

I could reflect on the many tasks that had to be undertaken or the degree to which new home appliances like the "vac" and the telephone would change the working day, but perhaps I will just point out that missing day which was the Wednesday, her day off.

Pictures; job description for a maid, 19267, courtesy of Bob Jones

*The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/the-story-of-chorlton-cum-hardy.html

One canal …… 18 pictures ……. 45 or so years ago …… walking the Rochdale in 1979

A short series bringing together for the first time pictures I took walking the Rochdale Canal from Princess Street to the Castlefield Basin.

Most have appeared before but not together in the order in which I walked the Canal back in 1979.

But given my memory and my total failure to make notes of each shot at the time I took them some may well be out of sync.

Back then the canal was still in a shabby state and despite the work of restoration there was still an air of decay, which was added to by the state of the buildings which stood along its path.

Many had seen better days, a few were derelict waiting for something to happen, and since I walked the walk some have been demolished and some have been renovated.

The real surprise was the conversion of the railway arches into Deansgate Locks which are described as the “Trendy nightspot for those who want to party the night away. You'll find establishments such as The Comedy Store, Revolution and Baa Bar. This canal side location is perfect for those who want to stay in one area, find DJ's playing all night and plenty of cocktails".**

All a bit brighter than 40 years ago when the best you could hope for was a passingboat.

Location; The Rochdale Canal

Pictures; The Rochdale Canal, 1979, 2003, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*One canal …18 pictures ,walking the Rochdale Canal in 1979, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20canal%2018%20pictures

**Deansgate Locks, https://www.visitmanchester.com/things-to-see-and-do/deansgate-locks-p37991

A little souvenir of Woolwich from the Great War?

Now here is the challenge.

HMS Manchester, 1914-18

Has anyone got a similar piece of crested porcelain?

It might have the coat of arms of Woolwich Borough Council or the title Eltham.

This one is an example of those porcelain souvenir ones which were made and sold in huge quantities during the Great War.

It made perfect sense for the ceramic industry to switch from porcelain models of Blackpool Tower and Ann Hathaway’s cottage to war time themes.

The actual figures were pretty standard but wither it was a tank, or an ambulance, or even a battleship they could be marketed in towns and cities across the country with just the addition of a transfer coat of arms.

Manchester Tank, circa 1917-18

These ones come from the collection of David Harrop and feature in my new book, but I would love to find similar ones from where I grew up.

The closest so far is a replica of the Cenotaph with coat of arms of the City of London.

And there must be others.

But what would be really exciting is one from Woolwich and better still of Eltham.

It is just possible that some where carefully stored away is an ambulance with a local name or badge

Cenotaph, 1920

Now that would be something!

Location; Manchester

Picture; crested souvenirs,  1914-1918, from the collection of David Harrop

Manchester Remembering 1914-18 by Andrew Simpson was published by the History Press in February 2017

A new book on Manchester and the Great War, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20Manchester%20and%20the%20Great%20War

The day Uncle Michael came for tea ......and stayed for 20 years ..... One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ....... part 158 ....

 The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

Uncle Michael, circa 1989

I say that he came for tea, but Uncle Mike predated all of us in the house that Joe and Mary Ann called home for 60 years.

He first washed up here in 1974 along with John and Lois, with me as an add on two years later.

And after he left, I stayed on and that is pretty much where I have been ever since.

Nor was Uncle Michael really an uncle but as the kids came along and he had returned he was as much a part of the place as our labrador, the three cats and all the acquired mis matching furniture.

He would arrive in the late afternoon, stay for tea and leave on the dot of nine pm in a taxi to the Bowling Green where he would sit quietly watching the pub customers, before leaving after last orders with a carry out of four cans of larger.

Some days he said very little but on others he could be playful with kids, would house sit while we were away and always washed up after the evening meal.

Everyone just accepted him and if he didn’t talk, then that was just how it was, in the same way that the cats might or might not offer up affection and Bagel the dog might not try to eat everything in his path.

Uncle Michael on holiday with us, circa 1993

All our other friends along with those of the kids also just accepted his presence, never asked why he was there, or his preference for silence, and all of us tolerated his habit of going to the back door for a cigarette and then flicking the butt over the garden wall into Beaumont.

But he was incredibly generous spending heaps on the kids at Christmas and birthdays and always turned up on New Year’s Eve, with a bottle of Moet Chandon, and a collection of VHS tapes from Blockbusters which would include two for the kids and one for us.

And then a little after midnight he would disappear into the night with his four saved cans and return on New Years’ Day.

It was a pattern he repeated every day until his death in 2003.

The house became a little more silent after that, but he is still a presence, and is there in conversations between the kids, and aunty Lois, and in the odd items he bought for the house which have survived the passage of time.

And in those conversations more often than not what comes through is the unstated affection we all had for him as he did for us, and the sheer pleasure in confronting some friends who just couldn’t understand the custom of the man who turned up every afternoon, stayed for his tea, didn’t say much and then absented himself only to repeat it all the following day.

Uncle Michael and John,out side the house,  circa 1974

But that said many families will have the ununcle uncle who becomes adopted by the kids and has semi-permanent residence.

In some cases it was the unmarried sibling who came with the marriage or arrived later and just stayed.

Uncle Michael was ours.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; Uncle Michael  in our house, 1988-1993, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Uncle Michael and John, circa 1974, courtesy of Lois Elsden

*The Story of a House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-day-uncle-michael-came-for-tea-and.html

 

Boxing Day 1959 with the Swift Annual Nu 4

This is the third of those comic annuals produced by the Hulton Press in the 1950s.

Swift like its companions, Eagle, Girl and Robin aimed to provide a mix of adventure stories, practical activities and a focus all things historical and scientific.

And like the others it issued an Annual at Christmas.
Swift Number 4 was published in 1957 and along with strip cartoons there were extended stories, and articles on Man 20,000 years ago, the Lighthouse, St Egwin, and a visit to Swift’s sweet factory.

Like the companion volumes there were plenty of line drawings and colour plates on Birds in the Garden, Wonderful Ants and The Story of Transport.

Now Hulton knew they were on to a winning formula and were not adverse to featuring commercial companies which appeared in the stories, so in Eagle there was Tommy Walls after the ice cream company and in Swift, Ladybird made an appearance in the Sign of The Scarlet Ladybird.

There were also DIY pages and what turned out to be my favourite Trains that run Underground.

Today, they seem a little quaint but at the time they were at the sharp end of what children wanted to know and what they wanted to read.

Looking again at my Swift Annual I have to say that the stories and pictures are pure 1950s.

I treasure the images of the trains and cars and enjoy just slipping back to what for a youngster was a carefree time.

At which point there is that danger of nostalgia creeping in so I might just sit down and make one of the many interesting things that Swift offered up.

In Number 4 these ranged from making animals from pipe cleaners to a Knight in Armour and a Cotton Reel Tank.

But Swift was aimed at both boys and girls and DIY acticities like the stories and featurs crossed what was thought at the time to be the gender divide, so for every tank there was advice on hos to make a  Raffia Girl from dusters, bamboo sticks and garden seeds.

And that is one of the charms of the book for the materials were what could be found in a 1950s house and that from memeory did include pipe cleaners, and discarded cotton bobbins.

I doubt that even then I could laugh at the jokes from page 117 of which these may be the best. Q."Why is a dog's tail like the inside of a tree? A. Because it is farthest from the bark, or Q. What is most like a horse shoe? A. His othershoes."

Now that said  I think this is the moment to close leaving me only to ponder on whether I shall explore the last of the Hulton four which was Robin, or strike off into one of the many rivals.
We shall see.

Pictures; from Swift Annual Number 4, 1959, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

One canal …… 18 pictures ……. 45 or so years ago …… walking the Rochdale in 1979

A short series bringing together for the first time pictures I took walking the Rochdale Canal from Princess Street to the Castlefield Basin.

Most have appeared before but not together in the order in which I walked the Canal back in 1979.

But given my memory and my total failure to make notes of each shot at the time I took them some may well be out of sync.

Back then the canal was still in a shabby state and despite the work of restoration there was still an air of decay, which was added to by the state of the buildings which stood along its path.

Many had seen better days, a few were derelict waiting for something to happen, and since I walked the walk some have been demolished and some have been renovated.

But as rundown as the canal was, and perhaps because it was so messy, and out of sight,  it was from time to time part of the urban playground.

Location; The Rochdale Canal

Pictures; The Rochdale Canal, 1979,  from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*One canal …18 pictures ,walking the Rochdale Canal in 1979, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20canal%2018%20pictures